This invention relates in general to an apparatus for delivering fluids and more particularly to an apparatus for safely and effectively delivering fluid medication to infants and toddlers.
Infants and toddlers often resist the administering of medicine or refuse to ingest the medicine once administered. A syringe or eyedropper is typically used to administer medicine to infants and toddlers, which are often times sensed as a foreign object. As a result, the infant often will seek to push the object away from or out of its mouth. Even if the infant has adjusted to a syringe or eyedropper, the unfamiliar taste of many medicines will still cause the infant to spit out the medicine once it has been administered.
Syringes and eyedroppers are usually rigid, and in the case of a struggling infant, could possibly be dangerous to the infant's eyes, mouth, and throat. When actually administering the medication if it is injected directly to the back of the throat it often causes a gag reflex. This reflex causes the infant to spit up an unmeasurable amount of the medicine. The important question of proper dosage arises when the medicine has been spilled or spit out by the infant or toddler. It becomes very difficult to estimate or measure how much medicine has been ingested and how much medicine still needs to be given for a proper dosage when the infant refuses a portion of the medicine. There is not only the obvious risk of over dosage, but the risk of under dosage making the medicine ineffective. An under dosage could be as significant as an over dosage if the medicine is critically needed by the infant.
Thus, it would be desirable to provide an improved apparatus for safely and effectively delivering medication in to infants and toddlers.